No limit for cheap holiday cigarettes and drink
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HOLIDAYMAKERS returning from trips to Europe can effectively bring back as much alcohol and cigarettes as they like, Revenue chiefs admitted yesterday.
Irish people travelling abroad are consistently warned they can only bring back 800 cigarettes and 90 litres of wine with their holiday luggage.
Those going on holidays to places like Spain sometimes take advantage of the much cheaper prices to bring home multi-pack cigarettes and bottles of alcoholic spirits.
But Josephine Feehily, head of the Revenue Commissioners, told the Dail Public Accounts Committee, that cigarettes bought within the EU already have their duty paid on them.
Ms Feehily said although there was a limit advertised at places like ports and airports, it would be extremely difficult for the Revenue Commissioners to prove in court that any number of cigarettes were not for someone's personal use. A spokesman for the Revenue later confirmed the same applied to cheap alcohol bought within the EU. A person could say they were using the alcohol for a wedding or similar event, he added.
Ms Feehily said most large-scale smuggling was happening at ports around the country.
But there was "very significant" case law which said the taxman must prove that cigarettes bought by tourists were not for personal use, she added.
She said people were free to brink back massive quantities of tobacco if they wanted.
"In the context of our membership of the European Union, people can bring duty-paid tobacco from other member states for their personal use and while we have an indicative guideline of 800 cigarettes, that is only indicative.
"What the law says is you can bring in tobacco for your personal use and there is very significant case law in the European courts and, indeed, domestically that suggests that the burden of us establishing the cigarettes are not for personal use is very high.
"So people can bring in many, many thousands, legally, legitimately into the country for their own use."
Ms Feehily was being questioned on the wider issue of cigarette smuggling and said that there was a huge market for knock-offs in Ireland.
Another avenue of smuggling was through suitcases, she said, but the really big shipments came in containers through ports, including the massive €50m seizure of 120 million cigarettes in Greenore, in Co Louth, last year. She described the Irish market for counterfeits as "fairly lucrative" and added that criminals usually followed public demand.
- Fiach Kelly Political Correspondent
Irish Independent
